The late October 2023 to early March 2024 rally in the Nasdaq 100 is over and now that things have settled just a bit, it’s good to take a close look at the price action. Rather than assess whatever is said in quarterly reports and parroted in the financial media, it’s probably better to simply see what buyers and sellers of the equities are up to.
You don’t need a Master of Business Administration degree or even an advanced statistics dissertation to tell if the trend is up or down. It’s unnecessary to find the exact words for an artificial intelligence prompt if you can see where buyers provided price support or where sellers provided resistance.
The Nasdaq 100 daily price chart looks like this now:
This index with the heavy concentration of big cap tech and social media stocks peaked in mid-March at just under 18500. Since then, it dropped in mid-April to 17000 before buyers returned and, as May begins, have taken the price back up to just over 18000. The Nasdaq 100 now has 2 closes above the 50-day moving average and the 200-day moving average trends steadily upward.
Here’s the daily price chart for Apple
Apple
Friday’s gap up above the 200-day moving average comes after the company announced a stock buyback program and a dividend. Note that the stock failed to make a new high on the news which, not too long ago, might have been easily achieved. Is the 50/200-day moving average crossover negated with May’s new price levels? It’s hard to say right now.
Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms
A big gap up at the beginning of February, a new high in early April and it’s all followed by a big gap down at the end of April. It’s not often you see a major stock like this, a major slice of a major index, trade with such volatility. Meta appears to have filled the gap down as May unfolds. That it’s trading below a down trending 50-day moving average is a negative.
Here is the daily price chart for NVIDIA
NVIDIA
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust
The semiconductor maker so well known for its AI chips established a low of just under $400 in late October 2023 and rallied like crazy until it peaked at $975 in early March 2024. The stock dropped to about $750 in mid-April and then rallied again in May up to the $925 area. NVIDIA is now at 3 closes above the 50-day moving average but today’s -1.72% on an increase in volume is unexciting.
More price chart analysis and commentary at johnnavin.substack.com.
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